Music and Mystery from concert violinist and author

On Feb. 4, 2012, Author and Musician Gerald Elias spoke and performed at the Salt Lake City Public Library as part of the Mainly Reading Book Club and the Utah Humanities Council’s Authors on Main Street program.

Elias, a concert violinist, composer, conductor and music teacher, talked about his newest book called “Death and the Maiden,” which is based on a quartet of the same name written by Franz Schubert.

“I based just about everything in this book on my experiences,” says Elias, “except the murders.”

“Death and the Maiden” features a world famous quartet that is imploding as the pressures of playing music together for so long have gotten to the members of the group.

“Even the best, most well-intentioned groups just sort of burnout,” says Elias.

Playing at Carnegie Hall is the group’s last chance to regain what they had. That’s when they start dying off, and Amateur Sleuth Daniel Jacobus gets involved.

Elias’ first book “Devil’s Trill” started as a violin lessons book that had a story wrapped around the lessons to keep the student engaged. His agent suggested that he figure out what audience Elias wanted to reach. If it was violin students, the book wouldn’t be published because of the audience wouldn’t be big enough.

“You don’t need to know anything about music to be entertained by the story,” says Elias.

Check out the video of Elias talking about the writing process below the ad.